Anyone out there ever have luck (good or bad) attempting to have more than one era for their layout? I know it comes up now and then in MR. I don’t mean mixing steam with autoracks; I mean having a full suite of equipment for more than one era and sticking to one of them for an operating session.
As I mentioned elsewhere, I’m assembling a Pennsy H10s from parts of three N scale locomotives. It’s a challenge, but fun. Still, as much as I am enamored of a 1950s Pennsy I never knew (except to visit the cold, silent beasts preserved at the museum at Strasburg, PA), I have been growing more and more nostalgic for the era I did know as a very young boy… Conrail in the late 70s to very early 80s.
I remember a rainbow of fallen flags against a rising sea of Conrail blue. Penn Central worms were still to be found in abundance. Amtrak still had its “pointless arrow,” and GG1s were running out their last miles. These are the memories I associate with my grandparents in Lancaster, PA and family gatherings, where we sometimes rode the train instead of driving. And, every train still had a caboose.
This will make me sound like a youngin’ I know… But they say modelers eventually tend to gravitate toward what they remember from their youth. I love the 1950s PRR with steam and 1st generation diesels (even though I never knew it) and I’ll keep it… but I’d like to try my hand at infant Conrail/late Penn Central as well.
I figure I’ll need 2 sets of rolling stock, 2 sets of automobiles, and maybe even changing out a few buildings. My road striping and signs are circa 1956, though, so that would be a challenge. Otherwise, the PRR right-of-way remained essentially unchanged until Conrail started major track reductions in the 80s. Thoughts?
I started out with plans to model 1913, but affection for older rolling stock and larger locomotives has changed it to 1890-1920. I am still researching the scenery and buildings for my era, but one thing I am finding is that a glance at a picture generally reveals a scene that looks a few years older than it actually is, unless some obvious peculiarity like a late-model car or locomotive dates it to a specific time. I’m leaning toward building a layout that “looks” right for about 1900, and then peppering it very lightly with later details - a very few autos, and even fewer modern buildings. As far as cars and locomotives go, I know that by 1913 the 28’ boxcars were relative rarities, and so they go off the layout when the 2-10-2s come on. There are certainly analogous situations with Conrail.
And of course, don’t forget the Reading - they provided Conrail with motive power, too, and they had one of the nicer pre-merger color schemes.
Dave,All of my industrial switching layouts is generic in design so,I can use C&O,Chessie,C&HV,Huron River,NS or any of my small collection of short line locomotives…That way I can use what I buy and buy what I like to have…I can model late 1950-2005 just by switching out locos,cars and vehicles.
To my mind a generic layout is a practical approach if we like to-well collect things out of the era we model.[:D]
I haven’t done it but did considered it. I’m guessing it was about 15 years ago I saw a magazine article that had liftout sections containing structures from different eras for updating or backdating the layout. There were even examples of the same structure looking fairly new on one module and more worn and weathered and painted a different color in module for a later era. I believe it also had modules to convert a space from a rural setting to a developed space. It is a very interesting idea but I’m having enough trouble completing the layout for one era much less building it for two or three eras.
I use a multiple era approach of sorts on my HO Siskiyou Line.
I model the 1980s exactly 20 years behind the current date. So its currently December 1986 on the layout. I plan to stay in the 1980s forever, which means come 2010, I will roll the clock back to 1980 again and we will march through the decade year by year again.
In the early 1980s, everything was clearly classic gray and scarlet Southern Pacific, and there’s even a few roof walks in evidence. As the decade proceeds, more and more rebuilt SD45s appear on the scene and the last of the roofwalks disappear, and more centerbeam flats show up. By 1982, the last of the Evergreen box cars are gone. In 1983, a 1984 Olympic-painted unit may show up. By 1984, TEBU slug units and GP40 mothers show up. By 1986, Kodachrome units begin showing up, and by 1988, Rio Grande units show up. In 1989, a few GP60s show up.
Of course, all along the way we have billboards and cars that change to reflect the current date.
I find this sort of “sliding era” modeling to be quite fun and helps keep the layout from getting too stale. Yet it’s fixed enough in time that I don’t have to radically change out key structures since they pretty much stayed the same throughout the decade of the 80s.
Well, if you model modern era, you can always have steam specials of any sort running on your layout and that’s going to be perfectly fine. Prototypes run steam on special occasions. But if you model the steam era, that SD70MAC is going to look very out of place.
I do. My Penn Lake System exists in both the early 1970s and the mid 1990s.
The 70s version is a shortline co-owned by the Reading and Delaware & Hudson, and interchanges with the PRR/Penn Central. I have a roster of RDG & DH Alcos plus some PRR EMDs. And of course cabooses for everything.
The 90s version is a regional just taken over by Canadian Pacific with an interchange to Conrail. In addition to my PLS painted engines, I have CP, Soo Line, and D&H engines, plus some Conrail stuff to work the interchange. The 90s version also hosts an Amtrak train. Only the locals use cabooses.
The eras are close enough, that I don’t have to worry about swapping out buildings, or inaccurate street signs or pavement markings. I’m not to the point, though, where I have vehicles. So, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with those yet.
I model NS in 2006, but by swaping out The Locos and Rolling stock and Vehicles I can change the era to anything. And at this point with No scenery or buildings I can switch my layout to anything in any era
The book you want is called “Building Your Next Model Railroad” by Rocky Mountain Publishing, 1989. The ISBN number is 0-9612692-2-7.
It talks about lots of great stuff, but one of the things it talks about is “Scene Libraries”. The idea here is to model some genaric buildings and leave them on the layout all the time. Other buildings are like mini-scenes that drop into place. On those you can make the buildings more era specific. Then swap out the trains and you’re in business!
While I, personally, don’t model multiple eras, I have given some thought to the idea when others brought it up at clubs I belonged to.
Most buildings are pretty permanent, but some are pretty era-specific. For one example, Quonset type commercial structures appeared starting in 1946, lasted for a few decades and then faded away. OTOH, pressed steel non-Quonset commercial construction is much more common now than it was fifty years ago.
Motor vehicles are very time-specific, so the standards of half a century ago now display Classic Vehicle license plates. This also applies to trucks - there were no Volvo semi tractors until quite recently.
One idea could make an era leap obvious. Remove a cow pasture and replace it with a subdivision of cookie-cut tract houses.
In a few years I will move to a more layout friendly home & scrap the little 4x8. I have been collecting UP for 40+ years, and it runs the gamut from #119 & the Jupiter to modern diesels. I also have the DeWitt Clinton, John Bull, & Prince of Prussia. All these will hopefully fit into a layout divided into scenes with towns of different era’s between mountains or other scenic dividers. If I can ever figure out how to do it I will be one happy camper![:D]
You model the pennsy in the steam era correct? Well since your layout has a small town the only thing you would really have to change is the vehicles on the layout and the trains, other than that, you should be fine as small towns dont really up date that often.
That’s my thought, anyway. My current layout is set in July 1956. The second era would be broader; 1976-1980. Although the buildings in the town probably wouldn’t change much, the coal trestle and freight station would probably not be in use by the late 1970s. Signs might also change.
I thought maybe I might have a removeable building that could be replaced with like a McDonalds or Pizza Hut or something. Another idea is to change out my PRR-painted interlocking towers with PC-green painted versions of the same structures.
This is exactly what I plan on doing since I have a smaller layout around three walls (2’ wide but still only about 32 sq ft). I like scratch building my structures using photos from the Denver Public Library online images for ideas. It allows me to do more modelling in a smaller space - have more locos and equipment. I plan on modeling from 1880s-1930.
This sounds like the same approach I was referring to in my previous post and it was published about the time frame I remembered. The term “Scene Libraries” rings a bell so I’m guessing the magazine article I remembered may have been an excerpt from this book.